Flip – Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (Paraty International Literary Festival) – was born with the objective of being present on the streets of the city, generating encounters and exchanges. This goal is manifest in the institutional text that describes the Festival on the Flip’s website:
“It is the meeting component that guides the many languages engaged in the making of every Flip: architecture, design, scenography, urbanism. Every detail is conceptualised seeking the transformations of public spaces, which year after year accumulate layers of affective appropriation by visitors and residents”.
There is no substitute for this experience. For this reason, promoting the 19th Flip virtually for the second year in a row posed challenges for the relationship between the cultural manifestation and the territory that shelters it.
The reality of the months before the Festival, however, demanded care: care for those who arrive and, more importantly, care for those who were already in Paraty.
Backdrop set up at Beco do Propósito, in Paraty, for the recording of one of the Flip virtual tables in 2020.
Given this scenario, it was necessary to search for solutions capable of connect the many agents that lead the Festival. Individuals who, connected to each other and immersed in the landscape of Paraty, animate the potential energy of Flip.
Characters from Paraty at the opening of the roundtables
The presence of Paraty in Flip’s programming has always been a central dimension in the conception of the Festival. A creative proposal that had already been adopted in 2020, the year in which Flip was also held in virtual format, was to bring Paraty and its characters to the “videographic stage” of the Main Program.
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In 2021, there were 19 videos with testimonies of characters from Paraty in their homes, ateliers, farms and communities.
This ethnographic videography with characters from Paraty opened each of the tables (here with English interpretation) and was shared, in a reduced version, on the Flip’s Instagram.
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Network of on-site exhibition rooms
Videography took Paraty to the main program tables. The other way of this relationship with the territory remained to be fulfilled: to make the 19th edition of the Festival present in Paraty, even exclusively broadcast via YouTube.
It soon became clear that it would not be enough to simulate something like a conventional Flip, only mediated by screens. If it was not yet time for physical displacements and large gatherings, some form of meeting might be possible. The Festa could serve, why not, as a starting point for local expressions that understand and respect the limitations, as well as the possibilities, of these places that opened up to receive the Flip.
In this investigation, it was also noticed that the connection tool used to enable virtual transmissions had a greater potential for expansion. If it was possible to take the Main Program back to the territory, there was also the possibility of charting new directions, exploring other points on a much larger map.
Silo Cultural de Paraty exhibited Panel 5: Plants and healing for an in-person audience. After the exhibition, they proposed a conversation with the doctor Fernanda Dettori, who researches indigenous medicines in dialogue with the western one. João Paulo Lima Barreto, who shared the table with Australian ecologist Monica Gagliano, was greeted with applause at the venue and participated in the conversation.
The idea of Flip Exhibition Rooms was born: from an articulation between the Festa team and local collectives, meeting points were idealized where the tables of the Main, Educational and Flip+ Program would be broadcast.
But that was just the beginning. The specific demands and interests of each of these groups were what in fact outlined the activities of the Rooms. The discussions at the tables, as well as the concept that generated the 19th Festival, were just the starting point for other cultural manifestations to happen in each of those rooms.
Over five meetings, the Flip team met with representatives of collectives interested in setting up their own Exhibition Rooms. Following the example of plants, responsible for shaping the 19th Flip, a collaborative and horizontal work dynamic was envisioned.
In all the Rooms, the local community proposed activities to accompany the tables. The Colibri Community Library announced sessions with popcorn and juice. Núcleo de Mídias in Paraty organized workshops with the Coletiva Mulheres da Terra.
What was noticed at the end of the process, and of the Festival itself, was that, in the variety of activities proposed, Flip was part of a larger and diverse program. It is a source of joy to know that, even in the face of an unstable and extraordinary scenario, Flip was able, somehow, to maintain its relationship with the territory and to be present in Paraty.
And to go further: in partnership with Instituto Cultural Vale, the exhibition rooms also arrived in Canaã dos Carajás and Parauapebas, municipalities in Pará that connected Paraty and the Atlantic Forest to the Amazon, the great forest that was the starting point and arrival point of several tables from the 19th Flip.
The exhibition rooms were also set up at Pará, in partnership with Academia Canaãnense de Letras in Canaã dos Carajás (first picture) and with the Museu de Parauapebas (second one).
Check out more reports and photos produced by the centers responsible for the programming of each of the exhibition rooms.
Exhibition of the closing panel of Flip in the Virtual Garden
With the on-site rooms, it was possible to maintain the Flip’s relationship with Paraty and expand the map to put Nhe’éry in touch with the Amazon. YouTube, with simultaneous translation into English, Portuguese and even French, allows table content to also reach a global audience. Besides these initiatives, Flip explored yet another possibility to make the virtual display of tables even more interactive.
The French group Banlieue du Turfu promotes activities and workshops in which participants imagine, together, what the future would be like from the perspective of peripheral peoples. A better future, for BdT, can emerge precisely on the fringes of large cities, on the periphery of the world.
Among the tools used by the group are virtual environments such as Firdaws Numérique, a collaborative virtual garden where people meet to share ideas and propose paths to a more inclusive future.
Flip shares this view, and therefore promoted the exhibition, in the virtual garden, of Panel 19: Cartographies to postpone the end of the world, with Ailton Krenak and Muniz Sodré. A meeting dedicated to proposing maps to postpone the end of the world, displayed in an environment built to collaboratively imagine the future.
Exhibition of Panel 19: “Cartographies to postpone the end of the world” in the Banlieue du Turfu’s virtual garden.
At the request of the organizers, to ensure the stability of the platform and the experience, a limited number of people were invited. Those who accepted the invitation were able to interact with others through an avatar that could which skin color, hair, clothing, and other attributes could be customized.
Microphone and camera could be activated when participants approached other avatars. So, while the table was displayed, it was possible to see the real faces of other people in their homes. And, at the end of the table, participants were able to talk about the experience and explore extra content, such as other videos and articles, positioned in the garden.
Among the options that users have for interacting in the Virtual Garden are the customization of the avatar’s appearance and the enabling or disabling the camera and microphone. The Garden can be accessed via computer or phone.
Ana Paula Lepori, urban planner at the Museu do Território and one of the guests and participants in the Virtual Garden investigations, comments: “It is more interesting to invite a defined audience to structured activities in these virtual environments, especially those who are already comfortable with games and immersive technologies. Interactive mapping workshops with high school students, for example, can be better used and enrich the discussion brought by a panel”.
Reflections on experiences
For the future, it is evident that it is not only possible, but desirable, to multiply Flip’s points of contact with its audience. Thus, even with the return of face-to-face activities, the main stage, which usually occupies the Praça da Matriz (Paraty’s main square), creates branches, and multiplies itself in countless other rooms.
“An interesting number of people gathered to watch the tables is around 15 to 20. With a group like this, cohesive and close, the exchanges between people and the absorption of the messages that Flip promotes are enhanced”, said Mauro Munhoz , during a conversation that took place after the exhibition of a table at Silo Cultural.
Fortunately, formats can coexist. In one panel you may want to feel connected to the general public, gathered and attentive in the Palco da Matriz; in another, explore one of the exhibition rooms, with its own manifestations and readings; maybe you prefer to attend some Panels from home, like watching a movie, or even during everyday tasks, as the broadcasts will continue to be available on Flip’s YouTube channel.
There are also virtual borders to be explored, where the display of panels gains multimedia, interactive and gamified layers. Throughout the 19th edition, much was sown. We are excited and curious about what will bloom.